“Wild Amaltas” and Other Poems

By Anuradha Vijayakrishnan

Distance

Between my broken foot and closed door

As far as a brave voice flew before returning defeated
Gaps between stretched fingers grasping air and light 

Length of rope dangling from branch of a tree hanging
close to earth but not quite  

Airmiles between apartment balconies
curtained window to curtained window

Thousand steps we must climb down slowly in case of a fire

Length of a night’s dreamless sleep
Length of that rope as it is taken down and coiled
into a ball that uncoils and slithers away

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Raag Bihag on Sarangi

He closes eyes slowly – what does he see – hand curving lightly
over silver strings trembling and a storm of sudden sand whirls around us
sighing and rattling doors silently like a dead lover – and I close my eyes to see
oceans swell to receive, forests tilt to welcome, mountains bend to carry
my bones into oblivion
promised on the other side of this moment – 
his eyes still closed as we meet by that trembling sea, endless desert, rockface
burnished by young moonlight – before he stops to let us
breathe and the sarangi rests on his shoulder
flushed from his fingers.

Bihag has seven notes, Bihag is romantic, I know from lessons long ago.

There is a town where they hang those who will not sing. There is a land
where he must be king.

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Wild Amaltas

Tonight the sky has again turned green and silver like a drowsy
day snake’s skin. Shreds of movie music drift over walls, cat’s eye dewdrops
sparkle on cactus leaf chains. This could be peace, a gentle story we gift to children
before they vanish into exhausted sleep. A lone wild amaltas tree trembles in the cold
breeze blowing from the desert, exotic canopy bleached pale by this exquisite
light. At this exact moment

earth is shifting, rivers are sinking, islands sent spinning.  A dragonfly is born; another
drowns like a saint in a garden pond.  Human hands meet tenderly
across far boundaries. A child’s palm prints itself on mother’s skin.
Someone cooks a warm meal on a lonely stove stirring spice and colour
into simple soup. Someone walks off a bridge
trusting water.

One day we might ask who planted this tree here in the desert. 

This wild amaltas that does not belong yet has flourished in this endless
sand. One day we might wonder how perfect this night was,
why it ended.

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Anuradha Vijayakrishnan is an Indian writer and business professional living in Dubai. Her work has appeared in Stand, Acumen, Magma, IceFloe Press, Dreich, The Lake, Tiger Moth Review, and The Chakkar. She is the author of a novel, Seeing the Girl (LiFi Publications, longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize), and a poetry collection, The Who-Am-I Bird (Bombaykala Books). Her poems have featured in several anthologies, including The Yearbook of Indian English Poetry series, and been translated into Italian, Chinese, and Arabic (Dar Al Muheet, UAE).

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